Movie Review: Overboard (2018)

Length: 1Hr 52Rating: 12About: Kate is a single, working-class mother of three who’s hired to clean a luxury yacht that belongs to Leonardo — a selfish, spoiled and wealthy Mexican playboy. After unjustly firing Kate, Leonardo falls off the boat and wakes up with no memory of who he is. To get payback, Kate shows up at the hospital and convinces the confused amnesiac that they’re married. As Leonardo tries to get used to manual labor and his new family, Kate starts to wonder how long she can keep fooling her fake husband.Netflixhttps://www.netflix.com/title/80216281

The Good

The cast is brilliant. Eugenio Derbez for me was a curious casting choice, but once you see the film he will win you over. His privilege, charm and development of character is on point. Leo’s growing relationship with Kate’s three daughters was sincere, heartfelt and rather cute. A difficult thing to pull off without seeming seedy in the current climate.Eva Longoria was just delightful in a supporting role as Kate’s best friend. She’s got the sass and the guts to get the plot rolling and I’m almost sorry she wasn’t given the role of Kate; she’d have nailed it.Of course, that’s not to say Anna Faris was bad. Over the years she’s really come into her own and there are some sincere and emotional scenes that she owns that I don’t think she’d have pulled off a decade ago.

The Bad

It was rather slow and lacking any charm or humour. There were a *few* giggles to be had, but it was with old and tired jokes which means I already know this will not stand up to repeated viewings. The film takes up too much screen time establishing both Leo and Kate’s situations. I’m not sure if the creative team felt that more was needed here due to the gender bending of the premise, but it felt like it was trying too hard to justify Kate’s motivation to bring him into the family home. It had a hard job, trying to live up to the original movie. It’s a classic Sunday afternoon, waiting for your roast dinner sort of film. Quite a brave film too, having it be a single dad and a yuppie woman. There really isn’t anything that can be added to it, and it is almost like the film knew that too.

The Ugly

No so much the fault of the film, but Netflix and its dodgy formatting. Make sure you go into the film with your subtitles on. It was about an hour in and three scenes in Spanish before I hit the subtitle button. The first scene I thought was meant to be like that as one woman slipped into English a few times. It meant that I was pulled out of the film. Okay, so it’s not like its a complicated plot, but it does show that those scenes don’t add anything either. It also meant that the subtitles had to be on for everything and not just the bits we needed translating. For me, parring down Leo’s family and using that screen time to work on Leo’s relationship with Kate would not have harmed at all.In fact, I really needed more Leo and Kate. Their chemistry was brilliant and you really could see Kate’s feelings changing, but the falling in love part felt like a LOT of scenes went missing.

Final Thoughts

Overboard is worth a watch, but the most you’ll get out of it is a hankering to watch the original.